On promises from our idealistic youth

Pradyot made a ringing comment on Facebook about the promises we make in youth. It set me thinking about my own idealistic youth and the letters I wrote to the President of India, the dreams I had and the kind of revolution I saw myself leading. Fifteen years down the line, I can hardly be classified as a revolutionary & it makes me wonder what ideals really mean to me as an adult. At 30,Values – I know, Ideals – I am less certain about them. I know that remaining rooted to my values does make me happy, chasing ideals often does not.

What I have also learnt is that the life of a promise is inversely proportional to the idealistic high it gives you when you make it! Quite often the idealism of youth proves not so ideal as you grow older and the strength of conviction fades.

Idealism of youth is like an equation that we write with limited knowledge of variables; the equation changes as we learn from experience. As young adults, we like equations of arithmetic certainty,but life teaches us probability and statistics as we go along.